The Good Tech Companies - AI Is Changing How Developers Learn: Here’s What That Means
Episode Date: April 24, 2024This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/ai-is-changing-how-developers-learn-heres-what-that-means. AI-powered learning for software ...developers is here to stay. Here's how we're building the learning platform of the future at Educative. Check more stories related to machine-learning at: https://hackernoon.com/c/machine-learning. You can also check exclusive content about #ai, #generative-ai, #learn-to-code, #ai-powered-learning, #future-of-education, #how-devs-can-learn, #good-company, #personalized-learning, and more. This story was written by: @fahimulhaq. Learn more about this writer by checking @fahimulhaq's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com. Today I want to provide a glimpse into the future of learning for software developers — the ways in which it will change due to AI, and what developers can do to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry.
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This audio is presented by Hacker Noon, where anyone can learn anything about any technology.
AI is changing how developers learn. Here's what that means. By Fahim Al-Haq.
AI has already changed what we need to learn to stay competitive in this new tech era.
Now, it's changing how we learn. Today, I want to provide a glimpse into the future of learning for
software developers. The ways in which it will change due to AI, and what developers
can do to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry. But in order to talk about the future
of learning, we need to talk about the past. Personalization is key. Effective learning,
in all subjects, has always been about personalization. Have you ever considered a
school for your kids? Or think back to your own school experience? One of the first questions is
the ratio of the teacher to the students. Everyone secretly hopes that the ratio is as close to 1 to
1 as possible. But typically, if it's a good school, it's 15 to 20 students to 1 teacher.
If it's an average class, the ratio is 1 teacher to 30 students. In many schools,
the ratio is even higher. Unfortunately, when an individual
teacher has to cater to that many students' atons, their teaching approach has to become more generic.
They simply don't have the bandwidth or resources to accommodate every student's individual needs
and learning style. Now, imagine if everyone had their own human teacher or tutor for every subject.
A great tutor can adapt to their students needs
in real time helping them build confidence while addressing skill gaps in a one-to-one format
tutors could present information in a way that would be best received at any given moment in time
factoring in the passions and progress of each student if we all had our own human tutor we
would all be learning to our greatest potential. Of course,
this reality isn't scalable, even in the best case. The degree of personalization a learner can receive has historically been limited by the means they have, as well as practicality.
Only the most affluent parents can afford one-to-one after-school tutoring for their kids.
It's impossible to deliver that ideal level of deep, personalized learning at scale.
Or, at least it was impossible until now. With advancements in AI that we've seen in the last few years, I'm confident that the future of learning is even more adaptive and personalized.
It's true for kindergartners, and it's true for software developers. What has changed? Well,
AI is already doing some amazing things, and it's only going to get better.
For example, AI can quickly assess what you have already learned and the end present you
with the best next step of your learning journey. It can adapt to your strengths and skill gaps.
It can make dynamic decisions in real time. It can mold around your interests and goals,
and help create a learning environment that is most conducive to your needs. Rather than
relying purely on human instruction, students can turn to AI for personalized lesson curation and mentorship
that actually adapts to their needs. AI can personalize learning for students at home and
in classrooms, all at a scale that wasn't possible before. Now let's focus specifically on software
developers. Developers must learn continuously in order to level up their careers.
However, most developers don't typically have a lot of time to invest in their learning.
That means getting a personalized, efficient learning experience that is actually designed
with developers in mind is crucial for staying competitive in the industry. To help illustrate
this point, I would like to briefly share a bit of my personal background in the world of developer learning. Developer learning must be hands-on. I founded Educative
in 2015 with my brother Naeem because we were frustrated by the lack of quality learning tools
actually built for developers. We were software engineers at Facebook and Microsoft at the time
and had reached a breaking point. With full-time jobs that demanded we upskill fast,
the available resources we had felt too passive. Scrubbing videos and poring over textbooks can
only take you so far. For the amount of time we and our colleagues spent studying, things just
weren't clicking fast enough. Any developer will tell you that the surest way to learn new skills
is to get hands-on. We have to build and break things, we have to get our hands dirty. We felt this interactive, problem-solving part
of the learning process was missing from the industry, which inspired us to create Educative.
Fast forward nearly a decade, and I'm humbled to say that millions of software developers are now
learning new skills and achieving career goals with Educative. With interactive widgets,
quizzes, and in-browser coding environments, our platform aims to get developers hands-on
with the skills they need to thrive in the modern tech landscape, skills like system design,
cloud computing, data science, and machine learning. Today, AI is allowing us to deliver
an even higher quality of learning through personalization. We can now do more than just
deliver world-class course content. We can actually adapt the learning experience to the individual
needs of each learner on the platform, making their learning even more practical and efficient.
And we are hardly the first to do this in the online education space. Khan Academy, for example,
is already doing some interesting things in this area with their open AI-powered ConmeGo tool.
But we are the first to do it, at scale, in a way that is specifically designed for software
developers. What does AI-powered learning for developers look like? Individual developers have
unique needs, so our goal was to use AI to create a truly adaptive learning experience tailored to
each learner. To achieve this, the team at Educative has been
hard at work in the past months adding various AI features and enhancements. These include smart
code test widgets, mock interviews, adaptive skill assessments, personalized learning recommendations,
instant code and text explanations, prompt engineering widgets, AI code mentor for beginners.
If you want to try them for yourself, here's a link to where you can explore Educative's AI-powered platform.
With all these features enhancing our catalog of 1,000-plus AI-enabled courses and resources,
it's fair to say that Educative is the world's largest AI-powered developer learning platform.
There are a lot of exciting new AI-powered experiences available to learners on Educative
today, but the one I'm
most excited about right now is probably our AI mock interviewer. Interview prep has always been
a big focus for us at Educative, so it's the perfect complement to our catalog of 100-plus
prep courses. There's an old piece of advice in developer circles. Interview at lots of different
companies before you go interview with the company you really want to work with. While this may seem like a nice way to lower the stakes and get real-world practice,
it's highly inefficient and impractical. Mock interviews, meanwhile, are a great way to get
confidence and constructive feedback, but unfortunately, 99% of candidates don't have
the resources to get a real mock interview before their interview. It can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars
per interview to purchase one. Plus, most people also don't have friends who work at FAANG who
will offer you their time to mock interview them. Unlike traditional mock interviews,
AI-powered mock interviews give you multiple attempts to hone your skills
without shelling out a ton of cash every time. You can also prepare from the comfort of your home
without the anxiety of feeling overwhelmed or unprepared or running the risk of burning any
bridges. NRMock interviewer tool is available for coding interviews, system design, API design,
and OOD, and it's the first of its kind anywhere. Luckily, we've been getting some great feedback so
far. If you're curious, you can check out our
AI-powered mock interviews here. There is understandably a lot of anxiety about how AI
will affect the tech industry in the coming months and years. I have heard from many aspiring
software developers who are wondering if they should even learn to code at all. I've talked
about this a lot, but I'll say it again. Becoming a successful developer has always been about more than merely
knowing how to code. The world needs more than just coders. We need problem solvers, collaborators,
and creators. The presence of AI isn't going to change that. In fact, I think it makes those
intangible qualities more important than ever. Of course, programmers must still learn to leverage
AI in order to work smarter and more efficiently. Otherwise, they are at risk of becoming obsolete. The SOME, I believe,
goes for developers who don't leverage AI for learning. As we know in the software industry,
the learning never stops. It's a lifelong pursuit. Luckily, developers of all experience levels can
use Educative's AI-powered platform to build and practice new skills more efficiently. Meanwhile, our goal remains the same, to help learners confidently
navigate the challenges and opportunities of this new era. As excited as we are about all of this,
it's really just V1. We've barely scratched the surface of what iPowered learning can do for
software developers. The potential is truly staggering. The AI will only
get better, and so will we. But we wanted to get something out there fast so we could pressure
test it and learn from real developers to see how to best optimize the experience.
So today, I invite you to give us a visit. Poke around the platform. Build things. Break things.
See what works. Find out what doesn't. After all, it's how we learn.
Happy learning.
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